


A Day In The Life

by HotDogHowitzer



Series: Infinity Week 2020 [4]
Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bonus Content, Gen, Infinity Week (Halo), Slice of Life, Writing Prompt, day in the life of a sassbot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:22:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26628220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HotDogHowitzer/pseuds/HotDogHowitzer
Summary: Roland goes about his day while pondering a variety of subjects, from his own experiences to the idiosyncrasies of his crew.
Series: Infinity Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1933294
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	A Day In The Life

  
When he'd first come online, Roland had found the nights aboard _Infinity_ to be a crucible of boredom. Not enough tasks, not enough people to keep him from idling, metaphorically pacing circuits and wires while he made a game of running diagnostics to keep what felt like early-onset rampancy at bay.

Things were much different now, much better.

 _Infinity_ was quiet. There were seven data analyses running between the scientists, and number-crunching was a satisfying task with a low cognitive load. Pants was performing her signature 'I'm not scratching at the Captain's door, I'm stretching and my claws have just happened to scrape the metal, and I just happened to also meow whilst mid-yawn' routine, and the kitchens were setting up for breakfast, putting out coffee, condiments, and doing a final clean. Even at this hour, the space around _Infinity_ had a few transport craft out and about on various jobs.

But his chronometer was about to tick past 0359, and the smooth, easy tempo of the night shift was about to pick up. At 0400 ship's time, the day shift's alarms would start to go off, and the crew would begin to go about their days with a variety of morning rituals. 

A shimmer of tiny electronic signals lit up around him in a scintillating cloud as alarms came on and were turned off at different intervals. The door to the Captain's quarters opened at 0403, and Pants quickly got to her feet and trotted inside. Roland turned one eye on the room; Lasky wasn't giving her any treats today. 

Twenty minutes passed, and the crew started to leave their quarters, the Captain included. Once he reached the bridge, Roland popped up in the holotank with a crisp salute and began to give the overnight report as Lasky finished coffee no. 1 and listened. 

"Glad to hear we had yet another uneventful night," he sighed.

"There was _one_ casualty, sir." Roland watched his captain's eyes widen as his brows shot up, the AI's matrix pulsing with neon green laughter.

"What?"

"I regret to inform you that Betsy the garden spider finally met her demise at the jaws of Pants," he said solemnly. Lasky snorted softly and laughed, then looked down at the calico who had followed him to the bridge.

"Pants, why do you have to eat things with more than four legs? You are absolutely repugnant," he admonished. Pant's response was a long _WAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaAAAAH_!, which held no hint of regret or shame. 

Once the report was over, Roland disappeared and turned to the other activities of the day. The scientists were a hive of activity, at least in the digital realm, as they perused the results of their data analyses. Roland made sure to check in with Spartan Miller to ask how things were going between him and captain Daza, the fighter pilot. Muted teal washed over his matrix as he watched Jared go pink in the face, smiling as he proceeded to tell Roland how wonderful she was. For all the hell he gave the man, Miller was Roland's favorite Spartan. As he continued about his morning, tending the engines and a hundred thousand other things, something jarred one of his threads.

> _Meh, I don't like florbs in my fruit salad_. The string of text was from one marine to another via chatter, regarding breakfast. Roland had never come across the word “florb” or any variation thereof, and made a note to investigate; humans loved coming up with nicknames and code words for any and everything. 

Meanwhile, in the command chat, someone had dropped close-up photos of all the cats’ paw pads, and offered a free drink to whomever could correctly match each set of 'toe beans' to their respective owner. By the time lunch rolled around, there were still no winners. 

The behavior patters of the crew never ceased to fascinate him. There was a lot of overlap in their daily routines and preferences, but they were all subtly unique. Dr. Glassman for example, preferred to take his lunch at his workstation, but never got so engrossed in his work that he forgot to eat. 

"How did the analysis turn out, doc?" Roland asked, even though he knew that answer would be 'perfect' from a technical standpoint. Glassman sighed. 

"It gave us a lot of good information, we just have to figure out how to use it now," he groused. 

"So you need to analyze the analysis?" Roland quipped with a smile. Glassman pointedly ignored him, which was no fun at all, so he turned his attention to more entertaining things.

The rest of the afternoon wasn't too eventful as far as ship life went. Roland spent most of the day on the 'florb' mystery; the term had come up several more times, but never with enough context for him to parse it. A couple of Marines in the shower stopped what they were doing and looked at each other. One of them just said, "Florbs," and they both laughed hysterically for several minutes. Somebody else was talking about the flight deck florbs.

Later, he saw that Palmer won the 'cat bean contest' hands-down, and was awarded a drink ticket for a cocktail of her choice. Not surprising.

And as soon as she and the captain sat down for dinner, the rumors started to fly that they were in a sexual relationship. Whether they were or not was of no concern to Roland, but the rumors—and the way people came up with them—was always interesting to watch.

"So, what are you going to get with your hard-won cocktail ticket?" Lasky asked as he slouched in his seat across from the commander.

"Eh, I was thinking about a bottle of vintage florb juice." 

_There it was again._

Tom laughed. "In one day we went from Senior Chief Mutungi calling grapes 'flavor orbs' to just 'florbs'. How did we get here?"

Sarah laughed with him, and waved down a server. "Hell if I know. The human brain is a weird place."

Several things clicked like finely-machined gears for Roland. Somebody didn't like grapes in their fruit salad. The Purple Shirts on the flight deck were colloquially called 'grapes'. 

His matrix pulsed a vibrant true green as the information flowed, and another facet of life on his ship came into focus. The human brain might be a weird place, but he wouldn't want it any other way. 

**Author's Note:**

> There are a lot of cameos from Katwylder's Roland fic Iron & Gold in here. You should definitely go give it a read, especially if you like Pants.


End file.
